1. rightness (n) a: accordance with conscience or morality b: appropriate conduct; doing the right thing c: conformity to fact or truth 2. truth (n) a: the state of being the case b: the body of real things, events, and facts

Monday, December 11, 2006

SUNNIS, SHI'A, AND THE BIG, BAD PKK

"Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.“~ Senator Trent Lott, R-MS.

The war balance for the month of November is up at the HPG site. In spite of the ceasefire, which was rejected by both the Ankara and Washington regimes, TSK continued its operations against the Kurdish people's defense forces as follows:

Number of contacts: 25

Number of Turkish terrorists killed: 23

Number of our gerîlas captured: 2

Number of our gerîlas killed: 9

We also have confirmation on the Turkish Black Hawk down incident, with a little more information from the hevals at KurdishInfo.

In a retaliation operation, 11 Turkish terrorists were killed, 7 wounded, when their convoy was attacked between Cizîr and Basê in Şirnex.

Actually, quite a bit of activity is going on, so check out HPG. Naturally, the news is also available in Kurdish.

Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston met with Edip Baser in an undisclosed location in Europe today, according to Zaman. They're supposed to be meeting in order to "coordinate" more on the PKK, but I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'm willing to bet that they're ironing out the details of the $10 billion Lockheed Martin F-35 deal. Turkey is due to finish up the paperwork on that by the end of the year, which is fast approaching.

Rastî readers will remember that both the US and Turkey rejected the PKK ceasefire, going so far as to preclude any type of political settlement to the situation of the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation. The rejection came because a political settlement would not be good for Lockheed Martin's bottom line, nor for the bottom line of the defense industry in general.

The War on Terror® itself is nothing but an advertising gimmick to sell more weapons, as reported recently in the NYTimes, on Vancouver Indymedia.

Thanks are in order for a heval who notified me about a news item from AFP, carried on Yahoo:

The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) could call off a two-month-old unilateral ceasefire with Turkey if Ankara continues to crack down on the rebels and mistreat its Kurdish community, a senior rebel commander said.

"We have put everything on the line to maintain the ceasefire... despite attacks, oppression and acts of elimination against us. In the face of these developments, the ceasefire has rapidly become impossible to implement," Cemil Bayik was quoted by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency as saying on its website.

"Everyone should know that we will reconsider our decision (for a ceasefire)" if the Turkish government does not cease its attacks against PKK rebels, improve the treatment of the Kurdish community and pave the way for dialogue, he added.

[ . . . ]

Ankara's actions since the declaration of the ceasefire "have long ago given us the right to use our legitimate right of defence and retaliation", Bayik said.

"But there is a limit to this. If that limit is exceeded, it will not be accepted and will be met with great resistance," he added.

Notice how the AFP starts the article: "The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party . . . " How separatist can PKK be when it said this in August:

We would like as a movement to emphasize once again that the right solution is a democratic autonomy within the borders of Turkey. We believe that a solution in the unity of Turkey will be for the benefit of firstly the Kurdish people and all the people of the region.

Also note that the AFP article at the Yahoo link ends like this:

More than 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK, classified as a terror organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast.

I call it the "Shit Just Happens" line because every worthless journalist and news agency on the planet always uses that line because they are too stupid to explain WHY Kurds fight. In other words, they never provide context. But standard lines like this one, or the use of "separatist" makes the article conform with the American global War on Terror® bullshit.

There is a real eye-opener on elected officials who are supposed to know what they're doing about the global War on Terror® at Congressional Quarterly. The scary part is that the elected official in question is the Democrats' new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes:

I thought it only right now to pose the same questions to a Democrat, especially one who will take charge of the Intelligence panel come January. The former border patrol agent also sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.

We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players.

To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

[ . . . ]

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“Poquito,” I said—a little.

“Poquito?! “ He laughed again.

“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

Reyes: “Well, I, uh....”

I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.

It’s been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.

Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kill Sunnis in the spiralling civil war.

“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.

“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”

Reyes is not alone.

For more of the same, check the replies to the same questions from FBI officials and other politicians at the NY Times.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Speechless? Then allow me.

Mizgin, I know it is hard to believe for a Kurdish activist, but a huge portion of what you attribute to "malicious conspiracy" amongst American policymakers is really due to "ignorance and insularity." We live [essentially] on a huge island on the other side of the World from most of the World's problems. Our populace is made up of imigrants who came here to escape miserable lives in "old country," so there is a bias against delving back into those problems.

As Beaudelaire wrote, ignorance may lead to worse results than malice, but the correct remedy for each is different. Hence, you shd not conflate them.

We can laugh [grimly] at these ignoramous big-shots...but what is your excuse for writing such ignorant comments about, ohhh, Glenn Beck and Michael Ledeen?

Or have you had second thoughts, and decided, "Justin Raimundo is right after all"?

Glenn Beck and Michael Ledeen are among those who only find it convenient to mention Kurds when it suits US interests--Kurds who fight Saddam are good; Kurds who fight America's long-standing NATO ally, Turkey, are bad.

In other words, they are content to use Kurds as pawns. In that respect, they are exactly like Justin Raimundo.

The same country that smashed Hussein twice, and is planning to smash the mullahs now.

Mizgin and I have discussed the many errors in US policy over the years that hurt the Kurds grievously. I maintain that the policy was driven by a mega-conflict (Cold War) that was pretty well over by 1991. At that point the US shd have had a real re-assessment of its friends and "friends." But our foreign policy drifted on "auto-pilot" w/no leadership.

There are MANY pro-Bakuri Americans, and we are trying to educate the dumb mass to understand Turkey's crimes. But confusing ignorance with malice/conspiracy, or pretending there are no useful distinctions between foreign policy thinkers, is counter-productive.

BTW, Glenn Beck announced last week that Turkey will become a "very grave, grave, grave threat to the US." Are you telling me that there is no potential there to recruit an ally for the Bakuri? A man with a huge radio show AND a TV show?

US only smashed Hussein once, in 2003. In 1991, they allowed him to stay in power, with air support, after calling for the people in Iraq to rise up against him. We know how that ended.

Yes, US foreign policy "drifted" at the expense of many lives and incredible suffering, things that are never heard of in the US. Why is that? Why does American media purposely filter out that news? Why does American media purposely lie? Whose interests does American media really serve?

How many times have I argued this with American who claim to "love" Kurds. They don't have any idea that there is a Kurdistan occupied by Turkey. They have no clue of the atrocities. They believe all these atrocities, all the denial of Kurdish existence is all a result of PKK. That is a lie. Where was PKK in 1923? Where was PKK in 1925? Where was PKK in 1937? Where was PKK between 1937 and 1978?

PKK is a result of 1923, 1925, 1937, and all the years in between. The Başûrî fought Baghdad, and later Saddam, for decades, and then suddenly they are great freedom fighters and US "loves" them because they fought against atrocities. Bakûrî fight against atrocities and they are labeled "terrorists" by US. At least under Baghdad rule, there was never a question of going after Kurdish culture to crush it. Not so with the Ankara regime.

Beck is only worried about ratings. If he is truly concerned about Turkey being a threat to US, he is only worried for US, not about greater moral issues or whether Turkey is this moment a threat to Kurds, and Turkey has been a GRAVE threat to Kurds since it was founded in 1923. When US first engaged Turkey as an "ally" in 1952, that is when US responsibility came into play and US knows all of this very well and willingly engaged with Turkey to genocide Kurds. Look at all the US arms sold to Turkey. When did Turkey use any of them against the Soviets? But they used them on a daily basis against Kurds, the overwhelming majority of whom were unarmed, innocent civilians.

Beck is going to tow the official line on the "terrorism" farce and he doesn't give a damn about Kurds in Turkey or anywhere else.

Now, we have had a ceasefire offer, beginning in August. A ceasefire officially went into effect in October. Who was it who wanted the ceasefire? Turkey, US, and KRG. This ceasefire was rejected BEFORE it went into effect and the hypocrites who asked for it did absolutely NOTHING to take advantage of the opportunity.

As Ocalan said in his call to PKK for ceasefire, after this one, it is most likely that no one will ever listen to a call for ceasefire again, so TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OPPORTUNITY.

Well, Turkey, US, KRG . . . even EU, have pissed away the opportunity. I don't want to hear any crying when Turkish soldiers are sent home from The Region in boxes again. Obviously, those who beg for ceasefire are totally insincere, while box shipments of Mehmetciks seems to work at least on a local level to create a demand among the Turkish population for a REAL end to the conflict.

No more crying. Whoever cries now, cries in vain, to paraphrase the Islamist PM.